End-to-End Rape Review Report on Findings and Actions
This report sets out the government’s action plan for improving the Criminal Justice System’s response to rape in England and Wales.
Applies to England and Wales
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The End-to-End Rape Review Report on Findings and Actions sets out the government’s proposals to achieve the ambition of returning the volume of cases referred by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service, charged by the Crown Prosecution Service and reaching court return to 2016 levels by the end of this Parliament.
At the heart of this paper is a commitment by the Home Secretary, Lord Chancellor and Attorney General to understand why the system has let down rape victims and to ensure that we build the confidence of victims to come forward and report these crimes.
The government’s action plan will work to deliver the following outcomes:
- an ambition to increase the volume of cases progressing through the system so that more cases get to court, and more convictions are delivered, returning to 2016 levels
- victim engagement increased at every stage of the process
- complex cases are not deprioritised. We will monitor the system and track the outcome of cases to ensure more difficult or historical cases are not dropped to get more cases through the system
- high quality cases referred by the police to the CPS
- increase public confidence in high quality decisions made by the CPS based on the evidence and material available and made in good time
- increased number of early guilty pleas. By improving the quality of the investigations and process overall we expect to see an increase in the number of early guilty pleas, so that victims do not have to wait as long for an outcome in their case and potentially avoid the challenges of going to court. The more early guilty pleas that are entered, the less the trauma for victims in having to give evidence at trial
- improved timeliness of cases at each stage of the criminal justice process
- limiting requests for information from victims, whether digital or held by third parties, to what is necessary and proportionate in pursuit of reasonable lines of inquiry and reducing the time victims are without a phone so that they are able to stay connected to their friends, family and support services during an extremely traumatic period in their life
- defendant’s right to a fair trial is maintained through quality case building, and robust and appropriate disclosure.
The actions in this plan complement extensive work being taken forward by the government on addressing other areas of violence against women and girls and by operational partners, such as the police and Crown Prosecution Service, to ensure justice for these crimes is delivered.
The government Social Research Evidence Report, which accompanies this Report on Actions and Findings, explores the experiences and views of practitioners from across the criminal justice system gathered through surveys, interviews and focus groups, to understand any changes, challenges and areas for improvement in relation to investigating, charging and prosecuting rape cases.
The appendices contain additional findings and research materials from the research with criminal justice practitioners, an independent literature review undertaken by Jo Lovett at London Metropolitan University of the published research on the progression of rape cases in England and Wales, and a statistical analysis of factors that influence the probability of charges for adult rape offences.
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Updates to this page
Published 18 June 2021Last updated 20 August 2021 + show all updates
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Welsh translation of review published.
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Corrected version of report published.
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First published.